


Toddle

by digitalsoop



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, Makogou Children story basically, way post series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalsoop/pseuds/digitalsoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt!Fic</p>
<p>Uncle Rin has to baby sit his niece and nephew while Makoto and Gou take a weekend off. He realizes pretty quickly why they needed the vacation...</p>
<p>Cross posted from Tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toddle

**Author's Note:**

> Maiha is the daughter that I created for Makoto and Gou and Minoru is the son that cantabrasil03 created, though for a while he had no name. We have joint custody of the children, but she frequently has to act as fictional child protective services because I just think of sad AUs for them. This is a happy story though.

Rin sniffed, looking at his sister’s carefully handwritten notes she had stuck to the fridge. Just like their mother, whenever she had left Rin in charge when he and Gou were young. He got it, mothers tended to worry and wanted to make sure nothing was forgotten, but Rin had enough common sense to know when breakfast, lunch, and dinner were supposed to be. He also knew that children needed baths, and judging from the food Minoru was accidentally smearing on his sister’s face, they needed lots of them.

"Come on, Maiha. This is your favorite!"

The baby groaned like an angry cat, turning her head away and smearing pureed vegetables across her cheeks. Minoru sighed, an old man at seven, set down the spoon and picked up one of the many cloths kept around the house for cleaning up messes. Rin smiled as his nephew gently wiped her scowling face and tiny hands, reminding her that she had to eat if she wanted to get bigger.

He stepped over and ruffled the boy’s hair. “You could probably take care of your sister all by yourself, Minoru.”

"Papa said the same thing, but he also said the police would come if they left us alone." Minoru turned to him when Maiha’s face was mostly clean. "Cause it’s against the law to not have bath time, and I can’t get Maiha into the bath tub."

Rin took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. “I think Papa was joking with you, Minoru.”

He might as well have admitted that he was actually Santa Claus, because Minoru was literally seeing stars. “Papa won’t go to jail if we don’t take a bath?”

"Of course not! But you still have to take them."

"Oh, I don’t mind baths. It’s Maiha that doesn’t like them."

As if on cue she yelled and beat her tiny fists on the tray of her high chair. Rin hissed when she deliberately raised one tiny fist and sent orange mush flying. Minoru stared up at him, horrified, as mush was spread across the tray, her face, and her hair by clumsy fingers. With a heavy sigh Rin turned her high chair, looking down at his now orange niece.

"Guess who has to take a bath?"

"Nii."

"Nope. Brother isn’t the one covered in his dinner."

"Ji."

"Nope. Uncle isn’t covered in his dinner either."

Maiha’s face puckered, her eyes darting to her dirty hands and bib. She was misty eyed, her frown making her chin dimple, but Rin squared his shoulders and stayed strong, even when she started to whimper and look to Minoru for help. She sobbed, just once, and let her head fall onto her tray, where she stayed motionless as Minoru patted her back.

Rin bit his lip and reached into his pocket for his phone so he could take a picture.

***

His niece was tricky.

He had thought, for the first few minutes of bath time anyway, that Minoru had been wrong and Maiha’s tears had only been because she had thought she was in trouble. She was quite content to sit in her little tub and splash and babble as Rin washed her hands and face.

But then he reached for the shampoo bottle.

Rin was pretty sure that any dogs within a twenty mile radius of his sister’s house could hear Maiha’s shrill voice. It was a wonder that no one had called the police, but maybe their neighbors were used to this by now. Minoru tried to give him instructions through the door, but he couldn’t understand him over her crying.

Rin turned to shout that he should just come in and Maiha, in the midst of a tantrum, flopped face first into the water and proceeded to get water up her nose. He eventually got her clean, but not before everyone was damp and traumatized. As soon as she was dry and in her pajamas she was in a much better mood, and was completely willing to eat yellow mush instead of orange mush.

He exchanged an exhausted glance with Minoru, who was spooning ice cream into his mouth and seemed just as likely to fall face first into the bowl.

"You know, I’ve heard of powder shampoo," Rin ventured. "No water."

"That sounds nice."

"Doesn’t it?"

***

It was around one in the morning when he texted Gou, squinting at the bright screen and doing his best to not disturb the baby sprawled on his chest.

_"Don’t get worried, but you didn’t tell me that Maiha doesn’t sleep."_

_"Im so r is she sleping no?"_

_"Gou, what the heck."_

_"It’s 1 AM and Makoto is on top of me you’re lucky there are any words at all."_

_"Gross don’t text me while you do that stuff."_

_"We’re just sleeping!!! At least we were before you started texting me. Is Maiha sleeping now?"_

_"Yeah, but she won’t sleep if she’s not on my chest. She’s getting kinda sweaty."_

_"Didn’t you read my note? I told you to not to let her do that! She tricks Makoto into it all the time but she has to learn to sleep in her crib."_

_"Well what else could I do? She would have kept everyone in the city up with her crying."_

_"Give her a bottle, swaddle her up, and turn on her little fish toy in her crib."_

_"Fish toy?"_

_"Yeah it lights up a little picture of cartoon fish and it plays music as it rotates the picture she really likes it."_

_"Does Minoru know this?"_

_"Probably. He makes it his business to know everything. When she wakes up just skip the bottle step."_

_"Why do you think she’ll wake up?"_

_"You said she was getting sweaty."_

He was going to ask what that had to do with anything when Maiha whimpered, lifting her head and bumping into his phone. Her eyes crossed as she tried to figure out where the light was coming from, but her whimpering didn’t continue, which at least meant she wasn’t going to cry. He sighed, setting his phone aside and lifting her up.

"Wanna go see your fishies?"

***

Minoru was a morning person, but Rin and Maiha may as well have been slugs. It was a nice change of pace, all things considered, because she was finally a calm baby. She was perfectly content to quietly drool on her brother as he dragged her around like an overweight cat, lifting her up from under her arms and letting her feet dangle. She could crawl, but Minoru insisted that it was faster if he just carried her. It would have been faster to just roll her across the floor, since he had to pause so often to gasp for breath.

Rin looked away from breakfast and raised an eyebrow when Minoru carefully set his sister on the kitchen floor. “Why don’t you hold her hands instead of lugging her around? She’s just gonna get heavier you know.”

"I could just get stronger."

He laughed. “Are you still gonna be carrying her when you’re my age?”  

"If I get big enough!"

"Knowing your Papa you probably will. But she can’t play tag if you don’t let her learn how to walk."

"Oh yeah!" He looked down at Maiha, who was very interested in her toes. "From now on, I’m gonna help you walk, okay?"

”After breakfast.” Rin scooped her up and put her into her high chair, nudging Minoru’s chair out with his foot. “Just don’t expect her to learn today.”

Minoru climbed into his chair and looked up at Rin with a very familiar look of determination. “I think she can. You can, right Maiha?”

"Un!"  

Since Rin had helped convince Gou to go on a little retreat with Makoto, he’d be in a lot of trouble if she missed anything involving her children. She’d probably kill him if he had no evidence on film. So, he followed Minoru and Maiha around after breakfast and used his phone to record them when it seemed that something might happen.

Maiha was clumsy on her feet even with Minoru holding her hands, tipping forwards and backwards and side to side and giggling as she went. Minoru coached her and occasionally dragged her across the floor when she thought it’d be more fun to stay down after a fall. When Gou called, they were both still persisting, showing no signs of wearing down.

"Look Gou, you really don’t have to worry. I gave them breakfast, I’m making lunch, and they’re playing. You can’t hear any crying right?"

"Ah! Uncle Rin!"

Gou demanded to know what Minoru was yelling about, and when Rin glanced down he realized that Maiha was toddling her way over on her own with a fierce look that was every bit her mother’s. He panicked and hung up on Gou, crouching down to record her.

"Look, look!" He grinned when she looked up at his phone, pausing for only a moment and then continuing forward, with Minoru following close behind. "You’re ready to run, huh? Your Mama’s gonna be pretty angry I hung up on her but she’ll be fine when I show her what a big girl you are. Oi hold on, don’t—"

He winced as his screen was blocked out by her forehead, and then Minoru was left staring into the camera in surprise after she dropped out of sight. But Maiha grabbed onto his knees, pulling herself back up while babbling away. He sighed and turned to his phone around, laughing before turning off the camera.

He sent the video to everyone, grinning as he caught Maiha in a hug and covered her face in kisses. “Uncle Haruka is gonna be pretty jealous. Now we just gotta teach you to swim before he gets the chance, huh?” 

**Author's Note:**

> I actually imagine that Rin talks to them in English a lot, especially Maiha, but there's not much difference between how I denote text messages and foreign languages so I try not to do both in the same page.


End file.
